


April Ghouls

by holtzbabe



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: April Fools, Excessive ghost busting, F/F, Irresponsible science, Lifelong lapses in judgement, Patty's not in this a lot because she's smart and knows to not get involved, The danger of puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 16:30:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10517544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holtzbabe/pseuds/holtzbabe
Summary: Here’s the thing. Holtz likes pranks and contrary to popular belief, she does know where the line is between harmless and harmful, and that’s why nothing that happened this April Fools Day is technically her fault. She planned the perfect prank that hit that sweet spot between hilarious and insane, but there were certain…unforeseen circumstances…that may have sliiiightly pushed it over the line intowhat the hell were you thinkingterritory.Again…not her fault.





	

**Author's Note:**

> APRIL FOOLS! This isn't chapter three of 'The One with Patty's Wedding'! I got you so good! Ha! 
> 
> Anyway, I thought it might be fun to write a short April Fools themed fic and then it turned out to be 5x the length I thought it was. Also I finished at like 12:30 last night and it's unbeta'd and even unproofread so I sincerely apologize for any mistakes!
> 
> Lastly, this takes place in the same universe as [The One with Patty's Wedding](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10439628/chapters/23050662) and it's set a few weeks before that fic, so it's a kind of prequel! You don't really need to have read it to understand this one, though. :)

Here’s the thing. Holtz likes pranks. She likes them a _lot._ Contrary to popular belief, she does know where the line is between harmless and harmful, and that’s why nothing that happened this April Fools Day is _technically_ her fault. She planned the perfect prank that hit that sweet spot between hilarious and insane, but there were certain…unforeseen circumstances…that may have sliiiightly pushed it over the line into _what the hell were you thinking_ territory.

Again…not her fault.

 

She gets the idea a few weeks before April Fools when she’s doing her daily check of the containment unit to make sure everything’s in tip-top shape. Her ghostly buddies seem in good spirits, pun intended, and the readouts are normal.

She raps on the wall of the containment unit. “Everyone doing okay in there? Need anything? Don’t lie to me; I can see right through you.”

She chuckles to herself at her own joke. The ghosts don’t respond.

“Oh come on, that was a good one! Don’t boo me.”

“Are you making ghost puns again?” Abby says from behind her. “That’s a grave mistake.”

Holtz grins at her. “I’m trying, but I’m not getting a response. It’s like doing stand-up in a ghost-town.”

“Maybe you should lay your jokes to rest, then.”

“Not a ghost of a chance, Abby.”

Abby examines the monitor on the outside of the containment unit. “Everything look good today?”

“A-okay. I was just thinking to myself how uneventful life has been lately. No funky spectral disturbances in weeks, and these guys are boring.” She jabs her thumb in the direction of the unit. “Maybe we won’t need to meet with the NYPD after all.”

Patty’s getting married in Mexico in about a month, and they’ll all be gone for a full week. They’re going to set up emergency protocols and leave some tech with the force, but Holtz would rather they don’t handle her tech if they can avoid it. It’s not that she doesn’t _trust_ them…she’s just been so antsy to fight a ghost that she wouldn’t object if they held off engaging with any hypothetical entities until the Ghostbusters came back.

“We should meet with them,” Erin pipes up from the other side of the room. “Just to be safe.”

“Bah. Safety.” Holtz punches a few buttons on the side of the unit. “Abby, want to come test out my new ghost-laser with me?”

“Can’t, I’ve got work to do.”

“Pattyyyy,” Holtz calls without looking up from the screen in front of her.

“She’s not here,” Erin says. “She had another dress fitting.”

Holtz turns around and removes her protective gloves. “Just you and me then, huh? Whaddya say, meet on the roof in ten?”

“Why me? Why can’t you take…Kevin?”

“You really think.” She eyes Erin over the frames of her glasses. “Kevin should be given a laser?”

Erin sighs and sets her book down. “Roof in ten it is.”

 

She sets up a new ghost target while she waits for Erin to join her. The last one got pretty blasted by the ghost-catapult version 3.4. The roof was raining ash for an hour, at least.

Erin steps out onto the roof and wraps her arms around her torso. “It’s cold up here. God, I can’t wait until I’m lying on a beach in the sun and I can finally warm up.”

“Don’t be a weenie. It’s barely cold.” Holtz dances over to where she’s set up the ghost-laser. “Now, if you’ll come over here, I’ve whipped up something that I think you’ll find _pretty_ cool.”

She shows Erin the trigger and directs her to take no mercy on the little shit, then steps back.

A thin proton-beam streaks through the air. Erin steers it so it slashes through the target, and it slices clean through, the two halves of the ghost falling to the concrete with a clatter. Erin releases the trigger and the beam disappears.

“ _Awesome_ ,” Holtz says.

“Is that what it’ll do to the ghost?”

“Excellent question. Short answer: maybe.”

“ _Maybe?_ ”

“I don’t know.” Holtz shrugs. “I’m hoping it’ll make a spectre explode when it cuts through, but I don’t know for sure. I wish we could test on _real_ ghosts. That’d be convenient. And there’s a whole wack of ’em downstairs, too. What a waste.”

“You could let one out,” Erin jokes.

Holtz taps a finger to her lip. “Hmmm…”

Erin’s expression of jest turns serious. “Wait, Holtzmann, no! I didn’t mean you should _actually_ let one out.”

“Pssh, I know that.” She grins. “What kind of madman would purposefully let a ghost out?”

 

Okay, so maybe it was a bit more her fault than she’d like to admit. But really, Erin was the one who first planted the idea in her head. Once she started thinking about the logistics of letting a ghost out of the containment unit, her brain wouldn’t drop the idea.

First she starts wondering if it’s even _possible_ , given the construction of the unit and the nature of the one-way transfer from trap to containment. That being said, she’s the one who _built_ the unit, so if there’s anyone who could find a way, it would be her.

Once she starts thinking in those terms, then it’s a _challenge_ , and there’s nothing Jillian Holtzmann loves more than a good challenge.

Well, there might be one thing she loves more than a good challenge, and that’s a good prank.

See, once her mind starts going about letting a ghost out of the containment unit (for science), it’s only a short jump to letting a ghost out of the containment unit for a _prank._ It’s perfect, really, because the others will _never_ suspect it, and it won’t be dangerous because it’ll be a controlled environment, and she’ll get to get that ghost-fighting itch scratched. Plus, it’ll be hilarious.

That pretty much makes up her mind.

 

It takes her all of twenty minutes to figure out how to reverse the containment unit loading process. All she has to do is program the airlock in reverse, and it’ll turn into a vacuum to suck a ghostie out of containment and into the waiting trap. From there, it’s as simple as opening the trap. Presto change-o!

Just to be safe, she should probably test the procedure the morning of April Fools before the others arrive, just in case there are any hiccups. The only time she cares about adequate precautions is when she’s executing a prank. There’s no room for whoopsies.

 

The last few weeks of March whip by in a flurry of last minute wedding preparations and soon it’s the last day of the month. Holtz is giddy all day, and the others side-eye her.

“You better not be planning something crazy for tomorrow,” Patty says. “I’ll kick your ass. I don’t need to have a heart attack two weeks before my wedding, got it?”

“Patty, m’dear, I would _never_.”

“I liked last year’s prank,” Erin says. “I’d be okay with something like that again.”

Last year, she rigged the entire firehouse with motion detectors hooked up to speakers that would blast various sound bytes depending on the location. Her personal favourite was the one in the bathroom, which was on a timer so it would go off thirty seconds after originally triggered, which meant whoever was in there would be _on_ the toilet when it screamed _WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING_ at them. Erin had fallen off the toilet the first time. It was hilarious.

“Not like the year before that, though,” Abby says. “I still find ghosts sometimes.”

“Well I’d _hope_ so.”

Abby shoots her a look. “You know what I mean.”

The year before last, she stuck ghost stickers over ever square inch of the firehouse. It took them months to find all of them. Well, almost all of them.

“Don’t wooorry,” Holtz says with an easy grin.

 

She doesn’t sleep a whole lot that night, and she’s at the firehouse by 6:00am for a trial run. She turns on her stereo for ambiance as she goes through her regular morning checks. Everything upstairs looks fine, and the containment unit is running as smooth as ever. She shoulders her proton pack to finagle the entity back into the trap once she’s done with her test, and she even sets up a few emergency side-arms on the nearby worktable in case that doesn’t work and she has to zap it into oblivion.

She positions an empty trap into the loading dock and secures it, then closes and locks the partition.

“Okaaay, let’s see what we’re cooking with,” she mutters to herself as she taps into the main computer controls for the containment unit. She wiggles her fingers and squints at the screen, then hits a few keys.

She bops along to the beat of ‘Take On Me’ as it blares through the speakers of her stereo and struts over to the control panel. She twirls a screwdriver between her thumb and forefinger then uses it to unscrew the cover. She takes the screwdriver in her teeth as she disconnects the power source from the containment unit’s power grid, which should theoretically make it so the unit doesn’t pull from the trap like it usually would, instead prioritizing the ionization of the trap in order to reverse the direction of movement.

The song fades into ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ and she sways along as she screw the panel back into place. She pauses to sing the chorus into her screwdriver, then drops it onto the table and steps back to admire her quick work.

She reaches out and enthusiastically smacks the button to engage the dock and open the trap. There’s a second delay, then a loud grinding noise that isn’t normal, followed by a whooshing. Well, that’s exciting.

She watches in glee as the safety lights start flashing (she really should’ve listened to Dr. Gorin and removed those; they’re such an eyesore) and the machine starts to spark ever so slightly. Maybe she should’ve had a fire extinguisher on standby too.

She realizes at this point that she made a drastic oversight in her preparations. She didn’t take into account how she would control for the amount of ghosts being sucked back into the trap, which is to say that she _forgot_ that she couldn’t control for the amount of ghosts being sucked back into the trap. Which means that _all_ the ghosts are being sucked back into the trap. All dozen of them. Into a trap that holds one, maybe two (if they’re skinny).

“Oh boy,” she says.

Then the trap busts open, blinding her with white light, and the docking station explodes.

She flies backwards out of the way of the spray of broken glass and shields her face. The room lights up blue as all twelve of the contained ghosts become…not so contained.

And boy, do they look angry.

She springs into action after a few dumbfounded seconds and scrambles over to the emergency panel on the adjacent wall. She hurriedly types in her keycode and slams her fist against the button that’ll activate full lockdown of the firehouse. Years ago, she implemented a full forcefield-like system in the walls that essentially turns the first floor of the firehouse itself into a makeshift containment unit and prevents entities from traversing to the outside world or upstairs. She never thought she’d actually have to use it unless some idiot powered down the proper containment unit and let all the ghosts escape, but now she’s real glad she installed it. Turns out, she’s that idiot.

She spins back around to appraise the situation. One ghost rams into the bulletin board by Kevin’s desk and sends it crashing to the floor. Another swoops around the ceiling, trying to find an exit point. A third screeches as it shoots in her direction.

With one hand, she withdraws her proton wand and lights it up, ensnaring the spectre. It struggles in the beam and lunges for her. She’s never going to be able to take care of all this by herself, not if she wants to recapture the entities and not just destroy them. Although, she’s not even confident she has enough working traps to house them all while she repairs the damage to the containment unit.

She pulls her phone from the pocket of her lab coat and speed dials Abby.

“Holtzmann, it’s 6:30am.”

“I’ve having a slight _situation_ here, Abby. All the ghosts escaped from the containment unit.”

Abby laughs in her ear for a solid fifteen seconds while Holtz struggles to maintain her hold on the ghost, which is becoming increasingly difficult as the other spectres descend on her.

“You’ve lost your edge,” Abby says when she finally stops laughing. “That was the weakest attempt I’ve ever heard. I can’t even say _nice try_ in good conscience.” She chuckles again. “Bye, Holtz. See you in a few hours. Try Erin.”

“Abby, wait!” Holtz shouts into the phone, but it’s too late. She’s already hung up.

Grimacing, Holtz focusses her attention back on the ghosts. One of the more gnarly ones hurtles right into her and she goes sprawling to the ground, her proton stream disappearing as her wand hits the concrete. She fumbles to holster the gun and crawls to shelter under the nearby work table, where she dials Patty.

Unsurprisingly, Patty doesn’t even bother to answer.

Holtz dials Erin and crosses her fingers.

It takes so many rings that she’s about to hang up, but then Erin’s voice is in her ear, panicked. “Holtz? What is it? What’s going on?”

“There’sanemergencyatthefirehouse,” Holtz gets out quickly.

“An emergency? What kind of emergency?”

“The containment unit exploded and all the ghosts are out. That kind of emergency.”

From across the room, there’s the sound of breaking glass.

“ _WHAT?!?!_ ARE YOU SERIOUS? HOW DID THAT—wait. Ha, ha. You got me good, Holtzmann. Can I go back to my shower now?”

“You got out of the shower for me?” Holtz asks, amused.

“I’m hanging up now,” Erin says, and Holtz can practically _hear_ the blush.

“No! Erin!”

“What?”

“It’s not a prank. I swear on…on Ellen.”

“Who’s Ellen?”

“Jesus, Erin, have I taught you _nothing?_ ” She shakes her head to refocus. “Please come, I’m overwhelmed and I can’t—” She breaks off and flinches as one of the ghosts throws a chair and it crashes into the table she’s under.

“What was that?”

“A ghost throwing a table at me. Believe me yet?” Holtz says dryly.

“Wait, what did you say happened?”

“Erin, I _really_ don’t have time to explain. If you’d just get down here as soon as physically possible, that would be dandy.”

Erin grumbles, “If this is a prank…” She sighs. “I’ll be there soon.”

That’s all Holtz needs to hear. She hangs up her phone and drops it into her pocket again, then somersaults out from under the table and rolls to her feet. ‘Eye of the Tiger’ starts playing on her forgotten stereo as she ejects her mini-pistols from her pack and switches them to stun mode, a recent addition. It zaps the entity with a blast of ionized energy to temporarily immobilize it without demolishing it. It’s a short term solution, but hopefully it’ll buy her some time until Erin arrives.

She jumps to work, pointing and shooting at the closest ghost. It screams and freezes as the shot hits it dead-center. She doesn’t stop, firing at anything spectral that so much as flinches. It doesn’t even take her to the end of the song to get them all restrained. She retracts her smoking pistols into her pack and stands back to admire her work. That should hold them for a minute or two, at least. She disables the emergency forcefield system so she can get past it and go upstairs (it works on living beings too) where she can hunt down all the working traps in the building.

 

Upstairs, arms full of traps, she calls Erin again.

“What, Holtz? I’m coming as fast as I can.”

“Call me when you’re outside so I can disable the emergency lockdown and let you in, okay? Don’t need you shrivelling to a crisp a few weeks before Patty’s wedding. She’d kill your ghost, I’m sure.”

“Wait, shrivel to a crisp? That would happen?”

“Let’s not test the theory. Call me.” Holtz hangs up.

She runs as many traps as she can carry back downstairs and activates the lockdown again. Several of the ghosts that she hit first are flailing their limbs, indicating that the temporary hold is loosening. She gives them all a top-up blast with her pistols and then returns to the worktable to count how many traps she’s managed to accumulate. New models, outdated models, even the first-gen traps that are horrendously large and bulky.

There’s only eight.

“Well, that’s a pickle,” she mutters.

She checks the status of the entities once more, then deactivates the forcefield and does another sweep of the lab upstairs for any traps she could’ve missed. She finds one more buried in a pile of junk, and returns downstairs to add it to the pile. She can only hope that all of them are still functional. Some of them have been sitting around for a long-ass time.

Regardless, she’s still screwed. There are still three more ghosts than there are traps. She _needs_ to rebuild the containment unit…but who knows how long that’s going to take? The explosion took out the entire airlock docking system and the control panel for the unit.

Unless Erin can come up with another solution, they’re going to have to obliterate the remaining three. Abby will be pissed about the loss of specimens, but that’s her fault for not believing Holtz and coming to help when she had a chance.

 

Her phone rings. She fishes it out and holds it to her ear.

“Go for Holtz.”

“I’m outside.”

She powers down the forcefield. “Okay, you can come in.”

She ends the call as the doors to the firehouse open and Erin steps in. Her expression turns from suspicious to shocked in a second as she takes in the frozen forms of a dozen ghosts scattered around the room in various stages of pursuit.

Holtz waves. “Good morning.”

“What the _fuck_ happened?” Erin says, then claps her hand over her mouth.

Holtz lifts an eyebrow as she powers the forcefield back up. “I told you, the unit exploded.”

Erin’s eyes dart to what’s left of the containment unit controls as she moves closer and dodges around one of the floating spectres. “ _How?_ ”

“It’s possible that the trap in the loading bay wasn’t up for the task of sucking ghosts back from containment and accommodating a dozen of them once.”

“Why on earth were you trying to suck all the ghosts into a trap? Why were you trying to suck _any_ ghosts back from containment?”

Holtz chuckles weakly. “April Ghouls?”

Erin’s eyes narrow. “Do you mean to tell me that you _planned_ all this as a _prank?_ All for that _pun?_ ”

“It’s a good one, though, isn’t it?”

“ _Holtzmann!_ ”

“I wasn’t planning on letting _all_ of them out! Just one! For science and hilarity! I just had a momentary lapse in judgement and forgot that I had no way to prevent all the ghosts from being pulled at once, and by the time I realized that the trap was exploding.”

“I can’t believe you would do something that _stupid!_ You’re the one who built the machine, Holtz! You of all people should _know_ something as basic as that. God. Your entire life is a lapse in judgement.”

“Can’t say I disagree.”

“You know, I don’t think this is what Cyndi Lauper had in mind,” Erin says.

‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ is playing on Holtz’s forgotten stereo.

“Whatcha talking about? This is what all the gals do for fun!”

At that moment, with a roar, one of the ghosts breaks free from its hold and lunges at them. Erin bolts for her gear as Holtz discharges her pistols and points them square at the ghost. She squeezes the triggers with a warrior yell.

Nothing happens.

She looks in horror down at the pistols and tries again, but they don’t do anything. Oh, brilliant, what a perfect time for a malfunction.

One by one, the rest of the ghosts are released from their holds and descend on them.

“What’s going on?” Erin shouts.

“Ghosts. Loose. Keep up, won’t you?”

Erin sends her a panicked glance. “Do you have a plan?”

“Uhhhhhh…catch them?”

The two of them back away from the advancing ghosts until they hit the work bench and have nowhere else to go.

“By ourselves? Please tell me the others are coming.”

“They weren’t as easily persuaded as you that this was real.”

“Great. On three?”

Holtz grabs for one of the traps and sets it down, then kicks it into the centre of the room. “Which one are we aiming for?”

“The warty one. One, two…”

“Three!” Holtz launches her proton stream at the ghost in question, a nasty brute who gave them hell the first time around.

The ghosts wrestles with their beams and roars, clearly a little pissed that his vacation is being cut short. He seems to be too strong for the two of them, and the others are still circling.

“This is hopeless,” Erin says. “We can’t do this alone, not unless we zap them all.”

“Abby would kill us.”

“You, Holtz, she’d kill _you._ I’m just a bystander.”

“Hey, you were the one who suggested I break a ghost out.”

“That was _not_ a suggestion!” Erin pulls her phone one-handed out of her jacket while keeping her beam around the ghost.

“You calling Abby?”

Erin ignores her. “Siri, call Abby.”

“You use Siri?”

“ _Calling Abby_ ,” the robot voice comes from Erin’s speaker-phoned cell.

“ _Hello?_ ” Abby says.

“Abby, thank god. You need to come to headquarters immediately. Holtzmann let all the ghosts out of containment—”

“By accident.”

“—and there’s no way we can get them back in traps alone.”

Abby starts laughing. “ _She’s got you in on this too? That I’ll give her credit for. Nice try, but I’m still not falling for it._ ”

“Abby, wait, I swear! Can’t you hear them screaming? Why is it so hard to believe that Holtz would do this as a prank?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot, we’ve established that,” Holtz mutters.

The ghost in their beams writhes. Another one across the room yanks the bookshelf, sending all the books on it toppling to the ground.

“ _What was that?_ ”

“All of our books,” Erin groans.

“Erin, I don’t think we’re going to be able to hold this one for much longer. He’s a feisty one.”

“Open the trap, then!”

“ _You guys are really dedicated to this, huh?_ ”

“Opening the trap!” Holtz shouts, and stomps down on the pedal to activate it.

It bursts open, glowing white, and the two of them focus all their energy on directing the thrashing, screaming ghostie down into it.

“Get _in_ there!”

Holtz tightens her grip. “He’s really giving it his all.”

All of a sudden, everything slows as Holtz takes in several things at once. 1) Erin’s proton stream is faltering. 2) There’s a ghost streaking towards them. 3) There’s another ghost barreling towards the main light fixture overhead.

Then time resumes its normal speed. Erin’s proton stream cuts out entirely, letting the warty one escape from their grasp. The one hurtling towards them, a very round one, opens its mouth just as Holtz remembers how much ectoplasm it unleashed when they caught it the first time, and she doesn’t even have time to shout a warning, because at that very moment the other ghost collides with the light and rips it from the ceiling. With a burst of sparks, the room plunges into darkness save for the glow of the ghosts and open trap, and the round ghost reaches them, screeching, and sprays them with enough ectoplasm to fill a bathtub.

Then, having miscalculated its path, it crashes into the warty one and sends them both just enough within reach of the ghost trap that it sucks them in. Holtz scrambles for the pedal, slips in the puddle of ectoplasm, and goes down hard. She fumbles her hand out, slime blurring her vision, and finds the pedal. She slams her hand down on it and the trap closes, taking the two ghosts with it.

“Oh. My. _God._ ”

Holtz can just make out Erin in the faint light from the swirling luminescent ghosts. She wipes the slime from her glasses and pushes herself to stand, then slips again and falls. “Help?” she calls weakly.

Erin treads carefully through the layer of ectoplasm and extends a hand to help her up. “Holtz, there’s still ten ghosts to go.”

“I know. What happened to Abby?”

“I dropped my phone.”

“Shh.” Holtz holds a finger up.

“ _Guys?”_ Abby’s voice comes, faintly.

Holtz spots the glowing screen all the way over by the remains of the containment unit. It must’ve slid in the slime. She picks her way over there, ducking another projectile from one of the ghosts, and picks it up, giving it a shake to rid it of the gobs of ectoplasm coating it.

“Abby, you need to get here as soon as you can. Call Patty. We haven’t been this outnumbered since Times Square and our gear isn’t working. Call before you get here so we can turn off the forcefield and let you in.”

“ _If this turns out to be a prank, I’m kicking your asses. Don’t be the girl who cried ghost._ ”

Holtz ends the call without replying.

“What are we going to do?” Erin asks.

“Bust some ghosts,” Holtz replies.

 

The two of them hide under the worktable together to come up with a game plan.

“You disable the lockdown, and I’ll make a break for the stairs. As soon as I’m past, start it up again. We don’t need any of these guys escaping any more than they already have.”

Erin nods. “You go upstairs and fix whatever’s wrong with my pack and your guns. I disengage the forcefield again to let you back in. We kick some ghostly ass.”

“I just wish I knew what was wrong with our gear. It’s not like them to crap out without some clear cause of—OH!” Holtz smacks a slimey hand to her slimey forehead. “I’m having an off day, I swear.”

“What is it?”

“The emergency lockdown. It works by emitting ionized energy, and that energy is basically counteracting the effects of our gear. Why didn’t I _think_ of that?”

“But they were working before!”

“The energy was contained to the forcefield itself before. It’s been engaged for so long that it’s seeping into the room now and sucking the charge from our gear.”

“Oh god. What are the effects of _us_ being in here for so long?”

“That is a problem for future us.”

“What do we do, then? We can’t do anything without our gear.”

“We have to shut down the forcefield. It’s the only way.”

“Holtzmann, we can’t just let the ghosts go wherever they want. There are _civilians_ outside. And highly dangerous machinery upstairs.”

“Then we’ll have to be quick. We should wait for Abby to get here. If my pistols can get a charge back up, we can use it to stun the ghosts like I did before and buy us some time.”

“And then we just trap all the ghosts again? Are there enough traps for that?”

Holtz grimaces. “No. And the two that just sucked themselves into that one can’t stay in there long or it’ll get overworked.”

“So, we need to disintegrate some.”

“Or I need to fix the containment unit.”

“Holtz, are you crazy? That thing’s shot. There’s no way you’ll be able to get it functional again for _weeks_.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

“Holtz.”

Holtz’s phone rings. She snags it from her pocket. “Abby?”

“I’m outside.”

“That was fast,” Holtz says as she scans her surroundings and then crawls out from under the table.

“I’ve been on my way here ever since Erin first called.”

“Atta girl.” Holtz disables the shield. “Okay, enter now!”

The door to the firehouse opens and Abby steps in.

“Come inside, quickly!” Erin shouts.

Abby comes further into the room. They can barely see her in the limited light. Holtz activates the lockdown and hangs up the phone.

“What the fuck is going on?” Abby says.

“It’s April Ghouls,” Holtz says, “and I, for one, think it could be going a lot worse.”

“Holtz accidentally let all the ghosts out, our gear won’t work unless the forcefield is down, the containment unit isn’t functional anymore, and we don’t have enough traps. Oh, and a ghost blew our light source.”

A ghost circles around Abby and the light is enough to illuminate her expression. “ _Really_ , Holtzmann? I mean, I have to commend you, this is one of your best pranks yet, but _really?_ ”

“I didn’t think everything through, yada yada yada, can we move on?”

“Did you get ahold of Patty?” Erin asks as she comes out from under the table.

“No, I think she’s asleep.”

“Her loss.” Holtz shrugs. “Okay, team. Abby, get your pack. Erin, get Patty’s pack to use while yours recharges. I’m going to set up another trap, and then I’m going to disable the ’field. The name of the game is speed, gang. We’ve got to get as many of them trapped as we can before any can escape.”

The other two have geared up. Holtz has kicked another trap into place. She hovers by the control panel for the emergency lockdown. “Ready?” she calls.

“Let’s do this, ladies,” Abby says.

“Good to go,” Erin says.

Holtz disengages the lockdown for the last time, and then springs into place. The three of them lock down on the closest spectre, as in-sync with each other as ever, and tug him over the trap.

“Opening!” Holtz shouts, and slams her foot on the pedal to open it. It launches open and they guide the ghost into it, easy-peasy, and she closes the trap again. They work so much smoother as a team. If Patty were here, it would be even more streamlined.

Holtz grabs another trap and sets it up as fast as she can, and then they direct their streams at another one, the fucker who broke the light, and they get him down even faster as the last one.

The next trap she opens doesn’t do anything. She curses under her breath. “Guess that one was in the junk pile for a reason.”

“What did you say was wrong with the containment unit?” Abby asks as she locks her proton beam around a ghost trying to leave out the front and swings it back to the centre of the room.

“Loading dock exploded, took the control panel out with it, pretty much toast,” Holtz throws over her shoulder as she grabs another trap.

“How long to fix it?”

“Dunno. Depends on how bad the damage is. Looks bad.” She shoves the trap out. “Ready?”

“This isn’t sustainable,” Erin says as they light up another ghost. “We’re running out of traps.”

“What if we keep at this while you go work on repairing the containment unit?”

“No, we’ve gotta get as many in as we can before that. We don’t want any getting out of sight. Opening now!”

The trap opens and they steer the struggling ghost into it, then it closes.

“Are your pistols up and running yet?” Erin pants.

Holtz sheathes her proton wand and breaks out her guns. She makes sure they’re still on stun mode, points one at a nearby ghost, sends a quick prayer to any and all gods who might be listening as well as the spirits of all the scientists who came before her, and pulls the trigger.

It freezes.

She throws her arms in the air and hoots. “That’s what I’m talking about, baby!”

Quickly, she takes down the rest of the remaining ghosts until there’s silence and stillness, the glowing hovering bodies of the immobilized entities surrounding them on all sides.

“Why couldn’t you do that before?” Abby says, disgruntled, as she returns her own wand to her pack.

“Told you, forcefield was tampering with them.”

“Well, this is a hell of a lot easier.”

“Here, Erin, take my pack instead and shoot any ghost that starts to unfreeze. I’m going to go take a closer look at the containment unit. Abby, see if you can find a flashlight. And _break!_ ”

 

Shortly later, Holtz is working frantically on the exploded unit, which isn’t in as bad a shape as she thought. Sure, the damage is extensive, but if she works at warp speed she should be able to get it working again by the end of the day. Abby found the massive industrial light that Holtz was saving for parts and set it up so she has ample light.

Abby and Erin work to capture one ghost at a time while ensuring that the remaining ones stay immobilized, until they’re down to the remaining two that there aren’t traps for (they managed to get another two tiny ones into one trap together).

“Now what?” Erin asks. “We just keep them here until you get the containment unit fixed?”

“Yepperoonies,” Holtz says. “Got a better plan?”

“Obliterate them?”

Abby huffs. “Absolutely not. We worked our asses off to get these specimens in the first place, and if we don’t end up with twelve ghosts in that containment unit there will be hell to pay. I don’t care if you have to go out and kill someone to get their ghost. Got it?”

“Savage,” Holtz says as she connects some wires.

 

Patty arrives some time later.

“What in god’s name happened here?”

“It’s April G—”

“Holtz came up with a stupid prank that all went to hell,” Abby interrupts.

“You could at least acknowledge my brilliant pun,” Holtz says glumly.

Patty shakes her head. “I do _not_ need this right now. Patty’s supposed to be keeping calm, y’all.”

“Have faith, Pattster. Everything will be back to normal well before we leave for Mexico.”

“Damn straight.”

 

Erin and Abby spend the rest of the day cleaning up the mess and destruction caused by the escapees, while Patty lounges on the couch on ghost-freezing duty, periodically hitting them with a blast from Holtz’s guns without looking up from her bridal magazine. They call Kevin and tell him not to come in. It’s better that he’s not around.

Holtz continues to work on the containment unit.

An electrician arrives in the afternoon to reconnect the light, and then Abby and Erin see just how much they missed cleaning (especially in the slime department…there’s still bucketfulls of the stuff everywhere).

Holtz takes a break to let the round ghost and the warty one out of their shared trap, lest they have another explosion on their hands.

“Let’s freeze the wart,” Holtz suggests with glee.

“I can’t believe you just made that joke,” Erin groans.

They immobilize the warty one and guide the round one back into the trap, but not before he barfs ectoplasm all over them for the second time.

“Oh, come on!” Erin whines.

 

It takes her all day, but she does it.

Patty and Abby have long since gone home for the night, but Erin has taken over shooting the ghosts. They’re mostly silent, but every so often Erin will ask how it’s going.

Just after 10:00pm, she sets down her tools and moves her goggles to the top of her head. “Done!”

Erin stands. “Really?”

“Let’s test it, shall we?”

Holtz grabs one of the full traps and swings it into place, then locks the docking station and moves to the control panel. Erin stands a ways back and shields herself. Holtz types in a few things, then hits start.

It works perfectly.

Erin lets out a little cheer as Holtz pumps her fist in the air. “And that’s the way us Holtzmanns do it, oh yeah!”

 

It doesn’t take long to load all the traps into the containment unit, then capture and transfer the last two ghosts. When they’re all done, the two of them slump onto the reception couch.

“Well, all in all, I’d say April Ghouls was a success,” Holtz says.

“Will you stop saying that?”

“April Ghouls.”

“Stop it, Holtz.”

“Come on, admit that it’s a good pun.”

“It’s a good pun,” Erin says begrudgingly. “A terribly thought-out and executed prank, but a good pun.”

“That’s all I ever wanted.” Holtz kicks back with her arms crossed behind her head. “Hey, you think the TSA would notice if I brought a ghost with us on the plane to Mexico?”

“I think even if they didn’t, Patty would, and she’d kick you out of the wedding party.”

“Pssssh. Patty loves me.”

“Yeah.” Erin sighs. “We all do, even when you pull stuff like this. You know that, right?”

“I know.” She scratches her ear. “I’m sorry for letting all the ghosts out of the containment unit.”

“It’s okay. All’s well that ends well.”

“You’re such a grandma.”

Erin shakes her finger at her. “Hey. Just you wait until we’re at the resort. I’ll show you how fun I can be.”

Holtz snorts. “Sure, sure. Anyways, I’m gonna head upstairs. I didn’t get any real work done all day. Can you believe that?”

“You should go home and sleep. I bet sleep deprivation was the cause of your…shortcomings…today.”

“You’re probably right.” Holtz stands and pulls Erin to her feet as well. “Come on. I don’t know about you, but Z’s are the only thing I want to catch for the rest of the night.”

They lock up after one more check that the containment unit is secure, and part ways outside.

“Night, Erin!” Holtz calls.

“Night, Holtz,” Erin calls back. “Happy April Ghouls.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Is anything that happened in this fic scientifically possible? Who knows. (Probably not, but don't blame me...I'm graduating with a BA in Writing, not a BSc in Paranormal Studies and/or Physics).
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://jillbert.tumblr.com) and stay tuned, because chapter three of TOwPW will be posted later today! I promise!


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